/ 

A SOUTHERN WOMAN^S 
WAR-TIME REMINISCENCES, 



E 605 
.S27 
Copy 1 



m 



y Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon. 




For the Benefit ot 

SHILOH MONUMENT FUND. 



J'f Southern Woman* s 

7l/ar Tji'me ^/Reminiscences 




9/frs. Elizabeth jCi/le Saxon 

^or the !^enefit of ihe 

Shiloh 9?fonument S'und 



<^ 






>c^ 



PRES3 OF THE 

PILCHER PRINTING CO. 

MEMPHIS, TEjJN. 

1905*. ; 






DEDICATION 



This little volume is dedicated 
to 
The J'. Harvey Mathes Chapter 
of 
the Daughters of the Confederacy 
by one who is proud to have 
been the friend of the good 
man and brave sol- 
dier for whom it 
was named. 



VIRGINIA FRAZER BOYLE, 

Tis the beat of the drum, 'tis the reveille 
From the camp and the field of the Past; 

Tis an echo that rolls to the warrior years 
Of the sound of a bugle blast, 

Tis the clashing of steel and the bayonet's gleam 

That glints on the ambient air, 
And the Southern Cross, with its starry field. 

Sweeps the breeze like a patriot s prayer, 

Tis the charging of Death where Justice 

drooped 
On her altar bathed in blood; 
'Tis the baying of guns, like the hounds un - 

leashed, 
That swells on the breast of the flood. 

Tis the storm that breaks thro' the mist and 
the rime, 
And the clouds drop their leaden hail; 
Tis the "Rebel Yell," through the pattering 
rain. 
From the souls that could never quail ! 

(Contuiued on Next Page). 



Continued. 

Yea, the steel meets heart and the heart greets 

steel 
In the passions of hatc^ — of death, 

And they fall in the lines like the wind 

swung grain 
At the sweep of the sickle's breath. 

And the riderless horses charge, unreined. 
Through the din of the cannon's blast; 

And the horseless riders have closed the line 
Where the mowing scythe has passed. 

But the carnage dies, and the day falls asleep 
Where the west draws her golden bars, 

And the smoke that has kissed both the blue 
and the gray 
Has left them alone — with the stars, 

Tis the hush cT the night — 'tis the drums 
tattoo — 

Tis the roU/'call, deep and clear, 
And the mounds that billow the grassy slope, 

'Neath the violets, answer **Here! " 



War Time Reminiscences, 



JUST BEFORE THE WAR. 

^1^ TURN in review to the years, so rife with 
H8| interest, just preceding the war. In 1855 my 
^jfe husband went into business in New York 
*^ City, and I, with my two eldest children, ac- 
companied him. It seems but yesterday that we 
strolled together through the old historic precincts of 
New York. I used to sit in Trinity churchyard for 
hours while my children played among the tombs, 
scratching the moss from the letters, and I wrote or 
studied, surrounded by the noise and clamor of trade, 
but as much alone as if in the heart of a forest. There, 
during the earlier part of our residence, I wrote my 
press letters and read. Later we moved up town, in 
the very heart of the city, where we were living when 
the events preceding the war begun to shape them- 
selves into such ominous foreshadowings. 

Our summers w^ere spent in the city, our winters 
in the South. In 1858 w^e had for our companion much 
of the time a most beautiful Boston girl, whose father 
had spent all his life in Mexico. He had come on to 
Boston and was carrying his daughter to Mexico to 
make a trade in a silver mine, she to be a part of the 
stock in trade, as wife of Don Josie Patillo, 59 years 
old. The whole party was stopping at our hotel. A 
gallant black-haired friend of ours fell desperately in 
love with her, and carried off this lily of loveliness 
right in the face of the swearing old pirate, her father, 
and Don Josie. The excitement over the matter in our 
hotel was about equal to tw^o fires and a murder, and I 
was pounced upon for helping it on. 

The father was obliged to leave his daughter in New 
York, and Don Josie returned to Mexico without his 
bride. About eight years ago, when speaking before 
a large audience in Texas, I saw Nell for the first time 



10 WAK TBIE REMINISCENCES. 

since before the war. Slie was surrounded by a bevy 
of girls, all grown, and each one as lovely as the 
mother had been in her girlish beauty. 

For some two years after her marriage Nell and I 
were much together. We visited the Great Eastern 
and danced on the magnificent deck, nearly eighty 
feet wide. "Oh, those diamond mornings of long 
ago!" It was there we were so rejoiced over the first 
message by the Atlantic cable, and we were all going 
about wearing bits of the cable set in gold, on our 
watch chains, or lugging it about as a valuable relic. 
There I first knew Peter Cooper. 

In 1860 events crowded fast upon each other. I had 
a most singular experience in connection with the Chi- 
cago Zouaves led by young Ellsworth. They came to 
New York and challenged any company in America 
to drill with them. Crowds went out to see them 
every day, and it was on one of these occasions that 
Nell, my Boston friend, and I were standing w^atching 
them as they wheeled and charged, fired with their 
guns kneeling, lying or running. I was looking at 
the young commander very intently w^hen suddenly 
a haze swept before my eyes, and, as if in a mirror, I 
saw him fall, shot dead. I gave a scream of horror, and 
my companion shook my arm — the vision was gone. 
He was alive and unhurt. I told what I saw, and de- 
clared positively that nothing could convince me he 
would not die a violent death. It will be remembered 
that he was shot early in the war at Alexandria, for 
taking down the Confederate flag over a hotel, Jack- 
son, its proprietor, firing the fatal shot. 

Men sneer at such statements as this. ]\Iy own im- 
pression, founded on my own experience, is that all 
spirituality is as far as possible, killed in children by 
their parents, owing to education and preconceived 
sentiments. We admit man is possessed of five senses, 
and if anything savoring of a higher or more subtle 



JUST BEFORE THE WAK. 11 

sense is shown, instantly it is deemed uncanny, un- 
natural, and must be repressed. 

Time will, aided by science and unfettered by big- 
otry, prove my statement true, that one, if not two 
or more, senses remain undeveloped in the human, 
and are perfectly natural ones. 

It would be well for women to realize this, for in 
the advance along this line, as showTi in experiments 
now being made in hj^notism, woman in her weakness 
is ever to be made the victim unless she strives for 
individuality, and learns the difficult lesson, "know 
thyself." 

Shortly after the Chicago Zouaves made their chal- 
lenge it was accepted by the Columbus (Ga.) Guards, 
and immediately after the Seventh Regiment enter- 
tained the Savannah Republican-Blues, and held with 
them a competitive drill. 

The brothers B. and B. M. Whitlock gave a grand 
entertainment to them up the Hudson, where my 
"lovely Nell" and I were in attendance. In a letter 
home I used this language : "It seems to me as if our 
people were military-mad, and had rushed together 
for a last fraternal embrace, to separate and fight 
like maddened devils; so violent do altercations and 
argument come when the questions of slavery, free 
soil, etc., are discussed." And when I went South 
some of my friends dubbed me the ' ' bloody prophet. ' ' 

It was in 1860 the Prince of Wales was in New 
York, and I well remember how we tore around to get 
a sight of the beardless youth; then laughed at our 
foolishness when it was over; but we had plenty of 
company, for the poor fellow must have had exalted 
ideas of our reverence and admiration for royalty. 
The Japanese embassy, with "Tommy," the young 
high caste Japanese, was there in 1860, and the amuse- 
ment we had when we found out that in the twenty 
carriages containing him and his suite, "the cook, the 



12 WAE TIME REMINISCENCES. 

baker and the candlestick maker," were all honored 
just as was the prince, for not only did they bring 
their cook, but their food, with them, and the highest 
New York women went wild over the almond-eyed 
young "Tommy," until one day, made bold by so 
much attention, he began kissing their bare shoulders 
right and left, creating as much consternation as a 
hawk in a barnyard. 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER. 13 

II. 
BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER. 

WHEN my husband's business demanded his 
of 1860, I remained with my children, in 
presence in the South, during the summer 
the family of a famous New York physician whose 
sentiments were of the most anti-slavery character. 
Two young men, students, were domiciled beneath 
his roof. While our opinions were stoutly maintained, 
we never quarreled, and it seemed to be the policy of 
the household to *' laugh and grow fat." Mrs. B., the 
doctor's wife, was a model cook and housekeeper, 
and we spent our time in every part of the house, 
from garret to kitchen, as freely and happily as possi- 
ble. 

On one occasion dinner was to be given on the 
anniversary of the college, and our newly graduated 
young M. D. (now a prominent physician in Syra- 
cuse, N. Y.) urged me to give him a sentiment for a 
toast, it being before the days when individuals were 
appointed and subjects arranged for the guests. After 
exacting from him a solemn pledge to give the toast 
as 1 worded it, I gave the following — seeing that ' ' The 
Ladies ' ' always had to be lugged in on such occasions, 
although barred out personally: "Here's to the 
ladies, God bless them ! Their ignorance furnishes us 
our carriages to ride in and fills our pockets with 
money. Long may it last. ' ' 

On the morning after this dinner, as I went into 
the dining room, I heard the young doctor, who had 
entered just before me, laughing as only he could 
laugh. 

"What is it?" I cried. "No laughing here unless 
I share it." 



14 WAR TIME REmNISCENCES. 

''We were laughing over the success of your toast, 
that Mr. gave/' said Dr. B. 

"And he gave it, did he?" cried I. "How was it 
received ? ' ' 

' ' Applauded it to the echo, ' ' was his answer. 

"And why applauded, doctor? Pray tell me." 

"Because every man of them knew it was true," 
was his unflattering answer. 

I will not try to give anything of the argument 
that followed this, but it closed with a statement 
about like this from the old doctor : 

' ' We have the power, the honor, the money. Women 
have not— and we intend to hold our own." 

I recall my many tongue battles in favor of woman, 
and the shame of her repression, especially her need 
for physicians of her own sex, and I really think the 
hardest and meanest things I ever had to hear Avere 
spoken on this question. 

I rarely failed during the fall and winter of 1860 
to attend the public meetings so frequently held. It 
was then I listened to so many eloquent divines pound- 
ing and slapping the Bible, and proving with learned 
discussion and many quotations that slavery was a 
' ' God-ordained institution, and should for that reason 
be preserved. ' ' 

Southern in every vein and fiber of being though I 
was, I gloried in the unflinching courage shown by 
Wendell Phillips and Henry Ward Beeeher on this 
subject, for I saw slavery in its bearing upon my sex. 
I saw that it teemed with injustice and shame to all 
womankind, and I hated it. 

In November of 1860 I went up to West Point to 
visit some of the college students ; my husband having 
a young relative there from South Carolina. 

I found the school in a ferment of unrest and dis- 
content. The boys of the two sections were at daggers ' 
points in discussions, and those I was interested in 
were wild to return home. 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER. 15 

On December 20th, 1860, the State of South Caro- 
lina seceded from the Union. I left New York the 
last of December, and went out to Savannah by 
steamer, several of the boys from West Point going 
then. It was still hoped that the example of South 
Carolina would not be followed by the other Southern 
States. 

It was near this time that the wonderful spectacle 
of the Aurora Borealis was seen in the Gulf States. 
The whole sky was a ruddy glow as if from an enor- 
mous conflagration, but marked by the darting rays 
peculiar to the Northern light. It caused much sur- 
prise, and aroused the fears even of those far from 
superstitious. 

I remember an intelligent old Scotch lady said to 
me, ' ' Oh, child, it is a terrible omen ; such lights never 
burn, save for kings ' and heroes ' deaths. ' ' 

As long as I live— for the years have not dimmed 
the memory — I shall recall with a sickening pain, the 
excitement and distress among the people. On our 
landing at Savannah it seemed as if the very air was 
ablaze with some terrible unseen flame. Nothing 
could be quiet. Men and women were flying every- 
where, the Southerner to the South, the Northerner to 
the North. Men and women who, far gone with eon- 
sumption, had come to seek lost health in the genial 
air of the South, pale, emaciated and weary, were try- 
ing to reach home before something happened to hin- 
der them. 

The very indefiniteness of the situation was its most 
painful feature ; few knew what to do. 

Many men realized that they were financially ruined 
if things came to a crisis, and how to prevent fanatics 
from both sections precipitating events was the effort 
of the conservatives. 

The sentiments of many were strong for the Union 
until hostilities became active. Then every one was 



16 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

compelled to decide for or against the South; to re- 
main neutral seemed almost impossible, from many 
causes. For quite a while men gave free voice to their 
disaffection and sympathy with the Union, but over- 
whelmed by the voice of numbers wild with excite- 
ment, declaring it dangerous in the midst of existing 
conditions to voice such sentiments, one after another 
became silent. And let every man and woman remem- 
ber this : We lived, as it were, over a powde** maga- 
zine that a careless word might arouse as a spark 
would powder ; and it meant ruin to many. I think, 
as after events proved, this was an exaggerated fear, 
though how much it helped to curb and keep in check 
the more brutal instincts of the negroes no man can 
tell. It was actions growing out of this condition of 
things that made my life a living fever of dread dur- 
ing the two weary years I remained in Alabama. 
Brought up in the little town, I loved all its inhabit- 
ants as if they were literally "my own people," and I 
knew the underlying Union sentiment of many a 
silent-voiced man, compelled to go to war or furnish 
a substitute, and it seemed to me a cruelty, aye, a 
needless cruelty, to make these men suffer afterwards 
for such aid furnished. It was tantamount to "we'll 
scald you if you don't, and we'll burn you if you do." 
If hell can furnish a more horrible condition than fell 
to the lot of these men and their families, I don't be- 
lieve it. 

Many had their nearest and dearest on both sides; 
perhaps the paternal family on one side, the maternal 
on the other. This was my own case. Major William 
Crutchfield, the eccentric Unionist of Chattanooga, 
who was so early identified with that town, and lately 
died there, w^as one of my relatives on my mother's 
side. It was he who in the Crutchfield house an- 
swered the speech of Jefferson Davis, when on his way 
from Washington. For intense and fiery eloquence, 



BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER. 17 

prophetic power and dauntless courage that short 
speech was unexcelled by any I have ever read. It 
was closed by some one hurling a bottle at William 
and knocking him from the counter, to which he had 
sprung. His younger brother Tom was proprietor of 
the house, equally as strong, but a far more cautious 
Unionist. These two men figured conspicuously in all 
the exciting times around and in Chattanooga. 

William was accused of being engaged with the 
bridge burners of Tennessee in the early part of the 
war. I Avrote him concerning it, and this was the 
answer verbatim : 

"Dear Liz — I have only time to say this: It is a 
miserable Confed lie. I had nothing to do with it. I 
am a Unionist, body, boots and breeches. I would 
fight in the cause of the devil rather than the Democ- 
racy. Yours ever, BILL." 

I never saw him until the vines were green and 
pears were growing in orchards planted on Missionary 
Ridge where cannon had been dragged. The balls 
were then piled in heaps in fence corners and door 
yards of Northern soldiers, plying their peaceful trade 
as farmers and fruit growers. "Farmer Bill" and I 
ate and praised their fruit, while they questioned him 
regarding mooted points in the great campaign. 



18 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

III. 
AN OLD-TIME ALABAMA HOUSEHOLD. 

I THINK the saddest day of my whole life was the 
day that Alabama seceded from the Union, Janu- 
ary 11th, 1861, and I recall no gloom that seemed 
to me so terrible as that which then shrouded my 
spirit; but we grew accustomed to everything, and 
the excitement was so intense one scarcely recovered 
from one surprise ere another was upon us. Yet 
amid all the terror, wrath and tears I found much 
that was calculated to amuse, until the actual begin- 
ning of hostilities, and we were made to feel the 
terrible realities of war. 

The people were wild with the "non-consumption" 
craze, going back to homespun jeans, lye soap, etc., 
long before the necessity was upon us. 

On a large plantation near my home resided dur- 
ing the summer a most estimable but very peculiar 
family. The mother was a widow with five lovely 
girls and an equal number of boys. They were 
wealthy, owning the largest number of slaves of any 
one in xhe county, and their plantation was very large, 
numbering many hundred acres of both wild and well 
cultivated land. 

Some little time after going home, and before com- 
munication was closed our young doctor of the ' ' toast 
story" sent me a copy of the ''Household of Bou- 
veare, ' ' just issued from the press by Mrs. Warfield. I 
was often a guest in the "Blank" family, and when 
there frequently read stories while they sat around me 
sewing. On one occasion two of the fairest and most 
charming of the beauties of Montgomery were guests 
in this family, and I had gone out, carrying the 



AN OLD-TIME ALABAIMA HOUSEHOLD. 19 

^'Household of Bouveare" to read. The young ladies 
were all preparing for a grand ball, that was soon to 
be given, and four of them w^ere going to wear home- 
spun dresses. 

Madam B. always had her preserves made in open 
kettles in the large yard, where they were directly 
under her line of vision. 

She was a notable housekeeper. All the sewing, cut- 
ting and giving out of clothing fell under her own 
directions, as well as the distribution of medicines, 
etc. And just here I would say the world held no 
equal of such housekeepers. It was like managing a 
State on a small scale, and Mrs. B. was one of the 
best. Though extremely large, and sitting much in 
her chair, she had her factotums, Jennie and Kitty, 
constantly on the run, supervised by some older domes- 
tic, and often by one of her daughters. 

On this particular day we sat on the open portico 
and I was to read Beauveare to them. The four girls 
were sewing on their dresses, vile-smelling, common 
checked goods, such as we used for our servants at 
that time. They were making them with long trains, 
low neck and short sleeves, and the lace they were 
trimming them with was Pointe de Alencon, Honiton 
and Valenciennes, suitable for the dress of a duchess 
at a court ball. 

In those days well nigh all our girls made most of 
their own dresses. All of a girl's dresses and under- 
clothing were made by her own nimble fingers, save 
her Yery best. But this was long before the making 
and importation of ready-made garments for women. 

Although I had been long married, having entered 
that state at sixteen, owing to the fact that I had al- 
ways lived in the town, everybody called me Lizzie 
or Miss Lizzie. 

During the reading on this afternoon it was about 
like this : ' ' Please wait a minute, Miss Lizzie. Would 



20 WAR TIME EEMINISCENCES. 

you put the lace on as full as this?" from one of the 
girls, as she held up the waist, with the delicate lace 
partly sewed on. I laid my book face down on my 
knee, inspected the dress, gave my opinion and re- 
sumed my reading. Scarcely would two lines be read 
before the madam's clear voice would ring out loud 
and full : 

' ' You, Helen ! I am looking at you nodding ! Watch 
that fire!" 

This to the sable attendant who sat on a low stool by 
the open kettles, knitting in hand — for no one was 
allowed to be idle anywhere in her domain. Even the 
two little negro girls who stood by her chair to run 
her various errands, both held in their hands two large 
straws with coarse thread, on which they were learn- 
ing to knit ; for two pairs of socks for each negro man 
had to be Imit by the women and girls during Avarm 
weather. 

A rapid thump, thump, thump from the Madam's 
thimble finger would rouse one of the nodding girls 
at her side, whose small fingers would, in the waking 
jerk, tear out two or three stitches. These must 
be "picked up," with running comments on the knit- 
ter's laziness, which would be interrupted by a half- 
suppressed titter from the girl on the other side; but 
the quick rap of the thimble on the small pate soon 
changed the laugh to a whimper. A rapid glance at 
me and a cordial, "Read on, Lizzie; I hear you," 
would start me with my book again— to be interrupted 
by some shambling negro coming in for orders, or to 
tell of some needed action somewhere on the premises. 
She would give her orders and almost in the same 
breath say, "Read on, Lizzie; I hear you." 

In a moment or two Charley or Benny would come 
in with a great bucket of red plums, or some little 
negro would trot in with a lot of guinea hen eggs, he 
had found in the brush, or the cackling of hens and 
the "pot-rack, pot-rack" of the hundreds of guineas 



AN OLD-TIME ALABAMA HOUSEHOLD. 21 

would drown the bellowing of a cow, let alone a 
woman's voice. A lull would come and in the silence 
I would try to read again, to be interrupted by one 
of the visiting beauties sweeping out of a side room, 
her homespun dress on, and the loveliest neck and 
arms shining like white wax; and she would sweep 
the vile smelling train around for us to tell if it hung 
all right. This decided, it would be the part of some 
of the group to cry out, "Read on, Miss Lizzie; we are 
so interested." 

I think, as I recall it all, it was one of the most 
ludicrous scenes and yet so characteristic in its make- 
up. I can see the lovely picture now, those towering 
live-oak trees, with their willow-shaped leaves, and the 
row of scarlet pomegranate blooms so vivid in their 
rich, red color — the strutting gobbler and the chatter- 
ing fowls. The peacock, with his gorgeous train un- 
furled, as he slowly walked along the fence rail, turn- 
ing and twisting until the mingled blues and greens 
shone like emeralds in the sun. In the distance the 
green corn and across the road and back of the house 
the cotton field with its varied blooms of yellow and 
white, and under the althea bushes by the hedges, the 
little girls, black and white, playing in their play 
houses, tricked out with broken bottles, china and tin, 
with rag dolls, and, perhaps, one or two stil remain- 
ing from the Christmas last past, minus a leg or arm, 
or even with a split head. Between the children and 
the house, the kettles with their smoking sweets and 
patient black watchers, who would every little while 
send in by a little shining-faced negro girl a saucer 
with a small quantity of the cooking fruit for '*miss- 
tis" to see how it was progressing. 

Dear dead days, sweet sad times ! between then and 
now, dear God, what awful tragedies I have borne my 
part in; and yet today the true and tender rises tri- 
umphant, and life is still sweet and full of divine 
possibilities for all the race, I do believe. 



23 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

When the ball came off the girls looked as lovely as 
when in satin and lace, for the dresses fitted their per- 
fect figures to a charm. One of the young men who 
had danced with all the four came to me, and, taking 
me to one side, asked in a hollow whisper : ' ' Miss Liz- 
zie, what in heaven's name is it that smells so awfully 
about those girls?" *'Why, it is a new perfume they 
are using," I said. "They call it patriotism; I call 
it indigo dye." "Oh," he said, "it is the dresses; 
why didn't they wash them? It is a horrid smell." 

I told the girls about it, and when they got home 
they were a beautiful blue all about their necks, and 
they hardly allowed the word homespun ever to be 
uttered to them until we really had to make it at 
home and wear it. 

When we began to gather boneset and dogwood, wil- 
low and wild-cherry to supply the place of quinine, 
and crossvine and blackberry leaves for tea, the 
madam, who, like an Englishman, allowed no tres- 
passing on her lands, was always quarreling with 
the root seekers and threatening prosecution for it un- 
less she gave permission. 

Dear, loving, motherly soul! She has long since 
passed, with her many slaves, "below that low green 
tent, whose curtain never outward swings," and 
among my memories her love for me is very dear 
indeed. 



A VISION OF DEATH. 23 

IV. 
A VISION OF DEATH. 

IN FEBRUAEY, 1861, I was in Montgomery dur- 
ing the Confederate Congress, and was present 
when Jefferson Davis was inaugurated. Every- 
thing seemd like a gala day ; and still, under the light- 
ness of seeming joy, was many an aching heart. 

Near the last of February a company was formed 
at my home of the young men of the town, mainly the 
very best in social position. To uniform them was 
the first and most important step ; then to get up a 
flag instead of the one they were using. 

While this movement was in progress I availed my- 
self of an opportunity to visit Mobile and New Or- 
leans. My trip down the river to Mobile was among 
a merry group of friends, two brides being in our 
crowd, and I was accompanied by several charming 
young girls. 

I recall the day of Lincoln's inauguration, March 
4, as a memorable one in my life. I had that day 
spent many hours with Mme. Octavia Walton Levert, 
so well knoT\Ti for many years as a charming society 
woman. I had been a pupil of Mrs. Caroline Lee 
Hentz, and learned much of Mme. Levert from her. 
In my youth we had been friends for some time. She 
was now confined to her room mth a sprained ankle. 
Whatever one may hear or know of this lovely woman, 
one fact remains irrefutable : She was the most gen- 
erous and helpful spirit to every young aspirant to 
fame and fortune that I ever knew. 

The tears flowed down her cheeks as we talked of 
the then existing condition of affairs. With deep in- 
terest we discussed the outlook, and her views were 
gloomy in the extreme. Younger, and with less of 



24 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

life's larger interest to lose (for her friends were 
legion all over the Union), I saw things through more 
hopeful glasses. Nevertheless, her gloom depressed 
me greatly. 

I returned to my hotel, the Battle House, and spent 
the evening in company with Judge and Mrs. Meek, 

Miss Mc and others. It was at least 11 o'clock 

when I went to my room. 

My father and I had not met for several years, 
he having gone to Arkansas with my two half brothers. 
For a long time I had not had a communication from 
him or them. My two brothers, we had learned, had, 
like so many other Southern youths, enlisted in the 
first regiment organized in the State. 

I was singularly like my father in temperament 
and person. As I have often said, ''I was the child 
of his soul as well as his body." The peculiar char- 
acteristic which I seemed to have of projecting my 
seeing and hearing faculties far beyond any actual 
power that I possessed normally made me, while a 
young child, a subject of deep interest as well as care 
to him ; and he alone seemed, in some measure, to un- 
derstand my nature, and to sympathize with my start- 
ling statements. He had found that I did see and 
know of events that occurred miles away, as was more 
than once verified by him. 

On this night I lay down in my room alone, in a 
singularly depressed yet highly excited mood, and 
sank into a profound slumber. 

Suddenly it seemed to me I was aroused as if un- 
seen hands had lifted me up toward the ceiling, and 
was wide awake and looking do\^Ti with the greatest 
interest on a scene transpiring in a room where every 
feature was plainly visible. It was a large, square 
room, with a fireplace, two doors and one window. 
The ceiling was plastered, as were the walls of the 
room. In the corner stood a high-post cottage bed- 



A VISION OF DEATH. 25 

stead. Between the bed and the fireplace (in which 
logs were burning), near the middle of the room, was 
a huge lounge bed covered with black leather, both 
«nds standing upright, and without any back. It 
looked gloomy and hearse-like. In the corner of the 
room next the fireplace, and between that and the 
window, was a piece of furniture covered from top 
to bottom with a white cloth reaching the ceiling. 
There was a door on the side of the room opposite 
the fireplace, and one on the side opposite the window, 
thus making a door near the head and one near the 
foot of the bed. The ceiling was so low that it was 
hardly an inch from the uncanopied bedposts. 

Lying on the bed was a man in great agony, and 
a woman was kneeling by the bed. He was resting 
on his elbow with his face drawn down on his breast. 
Suddenly he threw himself back on his pillow and 
stretched out his arms in death agony. I could not 
see his face, for the woman threw herself across his 
body like a frenzied thing. Then she sprang up, 
trying to raise him, and I saw her face plainly. It 
was myself; and the dead man was my father. I 
seemed to fall, fall in unfathomable space. Then I 
was sitting up in bed, cold with a sort of deadly chill. 
I sprang from my bed, lit the gas and looked at my 
watch. I had slept only two hours. 

I dressed and walked the floors for hours. I wrote 
down the whole thing just as given here, and for days 
and months I was wild with despair. I wrote to my 
father, but heard nothing, and finally the very un- 
reasonableness of the whole thing and the ridicule of 
my relatives, caused me to put it by. I had hosts of 
friends, my father also, and how could a train of cir- 
cumstances ever arise that would place him alone, 
dying, and only I with him? 

This was in March, 1861, and that vision, or pro- 
phetic dream, whatever it may be called, was literally 



26 WAR TIME REIVUNISCENCES. 

fulfilled in December of 1863. 

A full account of this fulfillment will be given later 
on, in its proper connection ; as it forms an important 
chapter in the remarkable psychological experiences 
of those terrible years. 

From Mobile I went to New Orleans with my gay 
crowd of young friends, and saw all its glory of fruit 
and flowers so early in the season, and made my visit 
for the first time to the French Market, and all the 
historical precincts that Cable and others have since 
made familiar. 

On our return there were quite a number of young 
people with us, and when blown out into the gulf the 
passage was very rough and nearly everybody was ill. 

Among the company was a young fellow that talked 
a great deal, and was quite a dude, but very pleasant. 
An old gentleman was returning from a Texas trip, 
and his sea-sickness made him cross as a wasp. He 
had crawled on deck where the dude and myself were, 
as neither of us had been ill, and lay down on a bench 
near us. The young man was telling some wonderful 
Arkansas adventure, and called the State Ar-kan-sas, 
with a strong accent on the last syllable. The old man 
twisted his face and scowled at him some time without 
a word. At last he howled out : 

"Young man, for heaven's sake say 'saw!' Don't 
say *sas,' for the word 'sas' makes me so infernally 
sick I shall soon be vomiting again." 

Everybody screamed with laughter. When the fun 
subsided the old man sat up and started a tirade 
against spelling, calling over all the names he could 
think of, spelling them over, and then swearing at the 
fool who put such pronunciations to them, such as 
Teche, Tchoupitoulas, Atchafalaya, etc. He proved 
to be one of the most entertaining men we met, and, 
despite his rough clothes, rough language and long 
beard, was a genuine gentleman, and most pronounced 
in his views on all subjects. 



A VISION OF DEATH. 27 

I remember we had a young man come on board who 
had been engaged in a duel at Fort Pickens. He 
joined us after we left Mobile, and this old gentleman, 
after I introduced him, broke out : 

''You didn't have any Yankees to kill, so you fell 
to shootin' one 'nother, hey^ Well, young man, just 
wait a little bit and you '11 have a chance to get bled, if 
you 're feverish. ' ' 

The young man turned on his heel and left us ; but 
the old gentleman kept up his running comment on 
things in general, which was very interesting and 
amusing. 

On this trip I met old Colonel John Grant, of 
Grant's Pass, one of the remarkable men of the times. 
I think he is still living in New Orleans, unless he has 
recently died, and is nearly a hundred years old. He 
held a post in the government employ for a great 
many years. 

The week after I got home the Light Guards left 
our town for Fort Pickens, and I was invited to pre- 
sent the flag to them. I did present it, with a heavy 
heart, for already I had learned that both my brothers 
were in the ranks. 

President Davis called on Mississippi for three 
thousand soldiers. The call was made on Friday; on 
Monday they were all ready at his command. The 
call was made on Alabama for five thousand, and in 
four days they were ready for orders. Georgia had 
eleven thousand men armed and equipped in April. 
These were independent of the troops at the various 
forts. Munificent gifts were presented by private 
individuals, in addition to the public fund. 

The South had never cooled in its bitterness at the 
sympathy shown by the North with John Brown's 
raid on Harper's Ferry, and it had grown with every 
hour. Flags hung at half-mast in Northern harbors, 
and he was mourned as a patriot of exalted worth. 



28 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

Truly it may be said: ''That man loosed a stone, 
whose fall echoed around the world, and whose effect 
latest ages will feel. ' ' 

"Dixie" sounded everywhere and was near this 
time used so commonly on all occasions that it became 
the national air for the new-born government. 

Now came a tearing up of our carpets for carpet- 
ing the tents of our soldiers, and supplies were sent 
from every household to the various encampments 
awaiting orders. In the prodigal waste that love and 
patriotism then inspired among our people in the 
homes, little did we dream how our children and 
our sick would need the wines and cordials and other 
delicacies so early sent out and never again supplied. 
There were in the homes of many people luxuries of 
a character and quantity to have lasted over four 
years if husbanded with care. Loving mothers 
thought of the boys only, so all that could be spared 
was sent, and in the idleness of camp life was waste- 
fully used. This was why want came so soon to our 
people when hostilities really began in deadly earnest 
and all hope of reconciliation was gone forever. 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR THE SOLDIERS. 29 

V. 

WOMAN'S WORK FOR THE SOLDIERS. 

WELL do I remember the first Confederate bill 
that I saw and the remarks called forth by 
it. We were at the dinner table in the hotel 
where we boarded when John Bird came in, and after 
sittmg down drew out a beautiful new bill, calling for 
fifty dollars. It was blue and somewhat like the 
greenback. It was passed around from hand to hand, 
callmg forth various comments, mostly of admiration 
and approval. When it reached me in its round I 
said to a gentleman beside me: "How long do you 
think it will be before we will have to give $500 of 
this currency for a barrel of flour?" "Why," he 
asked, ' ' do you ask such a question as that 1" ''' Sim- 
ply because I believe that it will be but a very short 
time before it will be at a heavy discount from the 
various conditions that war produces. ' ' 

A general outcry was made against me for lack of 
patriotism by those present. 

^ "You are familiar with the expression used in olden 
times— if you will pardon me for using it," I replied, 
"a thing of little value was declared not worth a con- 
tinental damn. It was owing to the depreciation of 
the currency of our country, and I am certain that 
our own will be the same in less than a year. ' ' 
^ Anticipating a little, I will say that in February, 
'62, it had fallen to six cents on the dollar, and it was 
amusing in one sense to see men carrying it about in 
armsful, almost, to pay their debts. 

Shortly after its issue a law was parsed compell- 
ing all parties to receive payment of all debts in the 
currency of the Confederacy. We had some $8,000 
loaned to one man, and though I begged earnestly that 



30 WAK TIME REMINISCENCES. 

he would not pay it then, but use the money even with- 
out interest until the war closed, we were compelled 
to receive it. Speculation ran high, but nothing 
caused greater dislike to be aroused than to be engaged 
in it. 

There had been much talk of the revival of the slave 
trade in the South, and though I am not aware that 
it was done in other instances, I know that one vessel 
brought over a number of negroes. The Wanderer 
anchored in some port off the Florida coast, and nine 
Africans were brought into Mobile. Fred Anus- 
paugh, a clerk on one of the steamers, brought two 
young women to our town. One of them he kept as a 
nurse for his son, and the other was hired in our hotel. 
They were sisters, and far from black. Though not 
mulattoes, they were brown-skinned and of most 
graceful forms. Nellie, our girl, was the younger, 
and if a black woman was ever beautiful, she was. 
Her features were clean cut, almost Grecian in type. 
It was my delight to question her concerning her cap- 
ture, the customs of her people and the state of her 
family. 

With childish pride she stripped the clothing from 
her graceful form and pointed to the lace-like girdle 
around her waist, tattooed into the skin with some 
colored pigment, and declared that none save the 
daughter of a mighty chief wore the armlets, anklets, 
and girdle such as she displayed. 

''My father rides," she said, "and an army moves 
at his back. He wears a sword and is a king ; we are 
a mighty warrior's daughters." 

She said that her mother sewed with needles and 
wore calico. The quickness and intelligence of those 
African girls was a strong argument in their favor, 
and the purity and correctness of language so soon ac- 
quired was wonderful. Poor Nellie became a mother 
within a year, and both sisters felt the disgrace so 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR THE SOLDIERS. 31 

keenly they attempted suicide, Nellie by opening her 
veins with a penknife, and Clara threw herself from 
a second-story window. Both failed in their attempts. 
I left in 1863, so lost all trace of them. 

The blockade had been established at Charleston. 
The first evidence of failure in needed supplies was 
the scarcity of salt. The United States mint at New 
Orleans had been seized by the State authorities of 
Louisiana. Congress had transferred the capital to 
Richmond. 

In June and July events of the most exciting char- 
acter were occurring and hostilities were actually be- 
gun. First a cavalry skirmish at Fairfax, Va., then 
quickly followed the fights at Big Bethel and Romney. 
When the Federals evacuated and burned Harper's 
Ferry excitement was at fever heat, and when the 
forty or fifty locomotives belonging to the Baltimore 
& Ohio Railroad were destroyed no pen can give an 
idea of the excitement in the lower States immedi- 
ately following the event. The council of war was 
held at Washington and the call for 400,000 men and 
$400,000,000 to put down the rebellion was issued by 
Lincoln. 

Money had now to be raised for the soldiers, and, as 
usual, women had to raise a good share of it. Every 
household became a workshop and women congregated 
by hundreds in halls to sew for the soldiers. Negroes 
were knitting stockings; children laiit, and women 
that never touched a needle before knit far into the 
night with eyes so dim with tears they could scarcely 
see their needles. I had a perfect hatred for this 
work, so I compromised with two young girls to make 
jackets for them while they knit for me. 

I was the secretary of our association, and my task 
was no sinecure. I cut, sewed and basted incessantly, 
as did every other woman in town. I would be glad if 



32 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

I had the old books to tell how many hundreds of 
garments and boxes of supplies we sent out from that 
long room. No less than seventy or eighty women 
were sewing there for months. Prior to this we had 
raised money by giving concerts and entertainments 
of every kind; we had tableaux and charades, dra- 
matic entertainments, and shows of every sort. We 
wore out our finery in this manner more than in any 
other way. 

After the second battle of Bull Run the wildest 
joy and enthusiasm filled the people; success seemed 
certain and the opinion prevailed that hostilities 
would soon cease. But soon this idea was discarded, 
for fighting was going on in the West. The battle of 
Wilson Creek was one of terrible loss to the South. 
Martial law was declared in St. Louis. President 
Davis issued his order for all Northern sympathizers 
to leave the Confederacy within forty days. At 
Clarke and Fort Hatteras the South met with great 
loss in prisoners and arms. 

Further and further south came the hosts of the 
Union armies. Fighting was going on in Kentucky, 
and prisoners were being sent to the South and North 
alike, carrying with them the hearts of sorrowing 
women, whose daily prayer was that the terrible war 
of brother against brother might soon end. 

As each Southern town fell into the hands of and 
was garrisoned by Union troops men began to run a 
system of blockade smuggling, and the greed of gain 
ate into the heart of many a man who had until then 
been loyal to the cause of the South. It was during 
this time, and thus early in the war, that men on both 
sides saw opportunities of making money such as 
had never before been presented, and the birth of 
monopolies took place that have since towered into 
such gigantic proportions as to cast a far-reaching 
shadow over the whole nation. 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR THE SOLDIERS. 33 

Amidst the turmoil and strife, the indirect cause of 
all this loss of life and peace — the negro race — bore 
their part. Able-bodied white men all gone, the 
women and children were under their care ; their will- 
ing hands labored, and by their sweat and toil our 
coarse fare was provided. Not an outrage was perpe- 
trated, no house was burned. Afar off on lonely 
farms women with little children slept at peace, 
guarded by a sable crowd, whom they perfectly 
trusted. No pen will ever chronicle, no song or story 
will ever tell, the noble and tender deeds this race per- 
formed; and in no land was ever a people so tender 
and helpful— their very toil helping to perpetuate 
their own bondage. 

Among the negroes prohibition almost absolutely 
prevailed. Though little imported liquor came in 
through the now almost impervious blockade, corn 
whisky was largely made and freely used or sold in 
many places; but woe to the rum-seller who dared 
sell a drink to any slave. To this, much of our safety 
and peace can be attributed. 

Men even yet continued to buy and sell slaves, and 
this trade was influenced by individual opinion. One 
man, firm in the belief of the ultimate success of the 
South, added to his slaves; another, thinking in any 
event slavery would be difficult to enforce, was dis- 
posing of his. 

Somewhere near the last of February of 1862 the 
battles of Fort Donelson and of Pea Ridge, Ark., were 
fought, with results disastrous in the extreme to the 
South, nearly 15,000 prisoners being taken. 

We were working all the time trying to get up 
clothing and supplies for the hospitals. Every old- 
time loom that had been put aside, every long-disused 
wheel was called forth — the cobwebs brushed off, the 
legs put in order, and every woman who could weave, 
high or low, sent the flying shuttle with busy fingers. 



34 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

while the young girls turned the wheel whose cheerful 
hum echoed everywhere. The famous butternut, or 
walnut-dyed jeans, was woven, cut into pantaloons 
and jackets, and forwarded to the various depart- 
ments. It was no longer a question of uniform or of 
gray clothing— it was any covering for comfort. 
Every long-prized coat, cloak or carpet that could be 
used was made into clothing for the boys. 

On the 7th of April, 1862, Island No. 10 was sur- 
rendered after a long bombardment and a loss to the 
Confederacy of guns, horses, wagons, steamers and 
prisoners took place that cast a gloom over the land, 
intensified four-fold by the awful carnage at Shiloh. 

I remember as if it were but yesterday standing 
over a large box packing as rapidly as possible the 
supplies to send to the hospitals in Virginia. Judge 
Leak came in holding in his hand one of the newspa- 
pers then issued in Montgomery, printed on the mean- 
est paper, with his face fairly convulsed with grief. 
He handed one of the ladies the paper, his finger 
pointing to the awful statement of killed and prison- 
ers taken. His sons were there, my two brothers, and 
oh, such hosts of friends. I sat down stunned and 
sick with pain and a sort of blind terror I never felt 
in all my life before. It seemed to me as if a shroud 
was around my own body. 

It was only for a little while we folded idle hands. 
A meeting was called and our decision soon made— 
that the greater need was for Shiloh, and new sup- 
plies must be added to those we intended for Virginia. 
I mounted my horse and rode from home to home urg- 
ing the already sorely taxed women to send all they 
could spare for the wounded. It was like shearing a 
sheep already stripped of his covering. 

New Orleans was in Union hands and Butler had 
captured the $800,000 in gold from the mint. Nor- 
folk had surrendered. Once more in the same room 



WOMAN'S WORK FOR THE SOLDIERS. 35 

where a few weeks before I had helped to pack the 
supplies a few of us were working* (I had heard that 
my brothers still lived), when we were again met by 
the bringer of news on the shabby paper. After Shi- 
loh's fight an order had been issued that all men 
owning a certain number of negroes could return 
home — the rest were mustered in for the war. The 
reason given for this order was that these men should 
work the negro forces in order to raise supplies for the 
people. It caused many poor men to desert near this 
time; for they knew what suffering must be among 
their families who had no negroes to work for them. 
It was often said ''it was the rich man's war, but the 
poor man's fight." If so, never did poor men do 
braver duty, or die for a cause more unselfishly. 



36 WAE TIME REMINISCENCES. 

VI. 
TERRIBLE PRIVATIONS AND INGENIOUS MAKESHIFTS. 

THE war found us but ill-prepared for the block- 
ade that was soon instituted, and it appears to 
me, as I recall the facts that existed, that not 
one person in ten anticipated the results, or else sup- 
plies of such character as were needed would have 
been bought in great quantities before hostilities be- 
gan. 

The South, so essentially agricultural, had bought 
everj^thing from Northern merchants. Cotton had 
been planted to the exclusion of all other crops, well 
nigh. Now potatoes, corn and other edibles were 
planted in larger quantities than ever before. 

It was laughable to see the table of a hotel. Very 
of ton half the supplies on the table were "private 
dishes. ' ' At the hotel where I boarded I had my own 
servant, and she would bring in my coffee, ham and 
other things. Many others did the same. 

The story went the rounds that a man went to a 
hotel in Montgomery and started to help himself to a 
dish of chicken, but was checked by a waiter saying: 
"Private chicken, sah. " 

' ' Well, bring me some ham. ' ' 

' ' Private ham, sah. ' ' 

"Well, see here, boy, you bring me a good dinner 
and I will pay you well. ' ' 

"Can't do it; I'se a private servant, sah." 

"See, here, landlord or waiter, bring me what ain't 
private on this table, ' ' yelled the irate guest ; and they 
brought him a salt cellar full of salt and a loaf of corn- 
bread ! 

Our needs were great in many directions. Shoes 
it was next to impossible to get without paying enor- 
mous prices. Leather was almost as difficult to get, 



PRIVATIONS AND INGENIOUS MAKESHIFTS. 37 
for the tanning of leather was very difficult Every- 

SlV^cors^Kwwould serve to .n.ake uppe>.. 
rsawsomen,adeby.aneigh«v^^^^ 

SrVproVL^i: wiCfttr^n^ an^ne how H 
wasdone I drove the awl first into my th™"" then 
The forefinger, and next into the palm of my hand. 
For a number of days I carried my arm m a slmg. 

This was mv only effort at shoemakmg, but I suc- 
ceeded betteTin bonnet-making; for bonnets were 
made of everything under the sun, from straw and 
nalmetto to^nshucks and wire-grass! I remember 
f hid « cluster of Arum lilies, and I made a bonnet of 
Jhe veUable dishrag, lined with a pale pmk crepe 
handkerchief and trimmed with pink ribbon and my 
Aram lilies I am certain I never wore a bonnet that 
warhaif so beeo,«ing, or which gave me greater pleas- 
Mi the old-'ime finery of our mothers and grand- 

dur „/'the four years. I dressed once m an entire 
.veddilg costume a hundrea years old anJJ^ ^^ 
^j;^tr;ro;r;kU^iS« shoes and oW^fash^ 
^ned eoxnb, covering my head hke an open cr^n of 
shell The vision in the cheval glass was radiant i.i 
y2h and%.trength. I never looked so well, I thmk, 
before or since. . » 

A wedding supper was the delight yet despair ot 
outwomen^I tWnk nothing so delightful as to create 
B^^Xgs, to rise superior to difficulties an^laccom- 
nlish o'reat results from small material. 1 have seen 
fruit cake made from dried applies and cherries m 
lieu of cil^s and raisins, and shortened with pork, 



38 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

that was delicious. I think the needs of the time must 
have invented the pork cake, recipes for which we 
often see in the latest cook books. 

We had tea of everything— blackberry, raspberry 
and sage leaves, sassafras and spicewood ; but the wild 
cross vine, whose pretty stem the children often 
smoked, furnished from its leaves the very best, re- 
sembling in a great measure the real Japan tea ; but I 
could never drink it without having a fear that I was 
getting hold of the poison oak vine, which it so closely 
resembles. 

Our coffees were made of peanuts, okra, rye, wheat, 
corn and meal and molasses dried and parched; but 
the very best was of sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 
small dice, dried, parched and ground. With a spoon- 
ful of real coffee this was extremely good. 

We made starch of green corn and Irish potatoes; 
and everything that could be utilized for food or do- 
mestic purposes was made use of. 

Though it was not until the close of the second year 
of the war that our needs became actually so terrible, 
long before the end of the year there was a mortality 
unaccounted for in the annals of strife. Thousands of 
children died during their second summer of actual 
starvation, owing to the coarseness of fare which alone 
was possessed by the masses, and utterly unfit for an 
invalid or teething child to eat. I had among my 
friends more than one mother who would recount 
with the most agonizing grief the long days of illness 
and the death of their darlings, for whom they were 
powerless to procure either medicine or suitable food. 
One of these women was mentally affected by the 
death of her little girl. 

Writing obituaries was my bete noir. I think I 
wrote hundreds, and was glad when we got down to 
wall paper as press paper, at which time many a 
weekly suspended, owing to the impossibility of get- 
ting any kind of paper for printing. 



PRIVATIONS AND INGENIOUS ]\L4KESHIFTS. 39 

It is wonderful, as I recall the circumstances, that 
our needs were not greater. It was rare that silver 
or gold was used. We bought our supplies and paid 
our railroad fares with the depreciated Confederate 
money. I still have on hand several thousand dollars 
of it, though after the war was over I sent away to 
various friends hundreds of bills inscribed with the 
pathetic lines written by Major S. A. Jonas, the first 
stanza of which reads as follows: 

"Representing notMng on God's earth now, 

And naught in the waters below it; 
As a pledge of a nation that passed away 

Keep it, dear friend, and show it. 
Show it to those who will lend an ear 

To a tale this trifle will tell 
Of liberty born of a patriot's dream, 
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell." 

It is owing to the fact that so many people copied 
this poem on the back of Confederate bills and sent 
them to friends that its authorship has been so dis- 
puted. I sent one to Mrs. Mary J. Holmes, and she, 
knowing that I courted the muses, decided that it was 
original, and to my consternation I saw it published 
over my own name in a Minnesota paper. 

The conscripts were being brought in from all points 
and mustered into service. Alas ! alas ! how different 
from the gay marching troops that had sprung so 
gloriously into the ranks two years before. Worn, 
half -fed, half -clad, half -desperate, they were marched 
to the field to meet the foe that had the world to recruit 
from. We were hemmed in by land and sea, our men 
dying on fields, in fortress, in prison, fighting des- 
perately—and for what? No living man at that time, 
it seems to me, but was certain of ultimate defeat; 
and we, the women— my pen fails to portray our 
misery. I would gladly draw the veil over that day 
and never lift it while time lasts. Without medicines 



40 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

in the long, hot summei'^, without food suitable for the 
sick — our smokehouses, our salt beds and everything 
in the shape of lead, torn up to be used for war pur- 
poses — the sickening rye coffee, the coarse bread, the 
want, the war, the burned houses, the desolate fami- 
lies— I would wonder in blind pain where is there a 
God, and does He rule in the affairs of men? I was 
young then, and '* youth bows down in misery and 
amaze at the dark cloud overmantling its fresh days.*' 



INTERESTING INCIDENTS AND EXPERIENCES. 41 

VII. 
INTERESTING INCIDENTS AND EXPERIENCES. 

MY MEMORY seems a complete tangle of events, 
so far as hostilities go, and I can scarcely 
untangle the threads so crossed in memory 
and rendered dim by time, "the beautifier of ruins 
and the sole consoler when the heart hath bled. ' ' The 
seven days' fighting before Richmond, the surrender 
of Memphis, President Lincoln's call for 600,000 more 
men, and the scattering of Morgan's raiders fill up 
the months of June and July, 1863, while hostilities 
were waging in Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi 
alike. The South was one vast battleground every- 
where. Yet still some men went on buying and sell- 
ing slaves as if nothing was to hinder or change their 
destiny. 

All our news from the West was terrible. Vicks- 
burg was being bombarded, had undergone a long 
siege, and, on the Fourth of July, was captured by 
General Grant. Our men had surrendered, the long 
strain was over, and negroes began to pour into the 
Union camps from every direction. 

In August I visited "My Charming Nell," men- 
tioned in the first of these papers, the wife Col. J. W. 
Bradley, of the Confederate army. She was then liv- 
ing at Newman, Ga. While there one of my brothers, 
whom I had not seen for many years, came and spent 
a day and night with me. Their regiment was with 
a large body of troops under Bragg, then massed at 
Meridian, Miss. On finding me gone from home, he 
followed me to Georgia, as he had a furlough of sev- 
eral days. We spent the entire night talking together, 
as he had to leave at daybreak to return. I remember 



42 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

telling him then of the awful vision of my father's 
death, and how we talked of our love and devotion to 
him. 

Before the month was out the command was rapidly- 
transferred to Tennessee, and on the 19th of Septem- 
ber my brother was shot through the head and in- 
stantly killed in the first fighting at Chickamauga. 
Will Crutchfield, to whom I have before referred, 
was then a major on the Union General Wilder 's staff, 
and twenty-odd in number of his blood relations swept 
up in the gray-clad ranks of the Confederacy, to meet 
the blue-clad Union lines in that terrible harvest of 
death. But he took no part in the hostilities after 
the first day, for the reason that he had a serious ill- 
ness which lasted a week. Years after he learned 
that his wife, whose sympathies were as strong for 
the South as were his for the Union, had drugged him 
heavily, and so prevented his taking further part in 
the fratricidal strife. 

The Union headquarters and hospital were in the 
Amnicola farmhouse, Tom Crutchfield 's home, five 
miles from Chattanooga. It was terrible beyond de- 
scription to hear the family at Amnicola tell of the 
hospital work, and of the number of limbs that were 
buried on the sloping hill above the orchard. Mrs. 
Crutchfield insisted on this being done daily, for some- 
times the shutters would scarcely close above the 
mangled limbs, tossed from the open window in one 
gory heap, in the haste and excitement during the 
fighting around Chattanooga. 

Fifteen years after the war I visited at Amnicola. 
While there we were looking over some old papers, and 
among them we found a plain gold ring with a writ- 
ten paper attached, and its history was given to me. 
While the hospital was in the house one of the mastiffs 
was seen in the yard with an arm in his mouth. The 
arm had been amputated near the shoulder. It was 



INTERESTING INCIDENTS AND EXPERIENCES. 43 

white and round, almost as if it had been a girl 's, and 
on one of the fingers was this ring. The arm was res- 
cued and buried, and Crutchfield tried to find the 
owner of the ring. Failing, he had filed it away 
among his papers. 

He had over thirty thousand dollars in gold belong- 
ing to himself and his mother buried just inside the 
garden paling, and under the trees at the foot of the 
orchard before the troops took possession. The gold 
in the garden, some twelve thousand dollars, with 
other valuables, was contained in six common glass 
jars, such as druggists use. At the foot of the orchard 
the sod was carefully removed in a square, the deep 
pit dug, the sod replaced and the dirt carried away in 
quilts. Early the following day the pear trees were 
trimmed and the branches scattered carefully over the 
ground. 

When the soldiers came rifle pits were dug in the 
garden not three yards away from where the jars were 
buried. Tom's mother lived with him; her love for 
the hidden gold was a very strong trait in her charac- 
ter. When they began digging the pits inside the gar- 
den the old lady came rushing out in a frenzy of ex- 
citement. Tom caught hold of her arm and silenced 
her outcry. The officer superintending the work was 
curious to know what she was so wild about. Said 
Tom, when he told me story : "I had to manufacture 
a lie, so I told him ma had some very choice bulbs 
along the border, and I actually hunted up every old 
tulip and lily root and filled my handkerchief, to give 
color to the story. ' ' 

The gold inside the fence, which was soon torn 
down, remained in the ground, and was fought and 
trampled over until the place was vacated. 

Only three persons knew where this gold (and that 
at the foot of the orchard) was buried, and one of 
these was a negro, faithful, loyal old John, who helped 



44 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

to hide it, and also to resurrect it. "I would have 
trusted him," said Crutchfield, ''with all I loved on 
earth, as I more than once had to do. ' ' 

While in Georgia I visited at Lagrange also. There 
I met with a number of refugees from New Orleans. 
Among them was Mrs. Phillips, the woman sent by 
Gen. Butler to Ship Island for singing the ''Bonnie 
Blue Flag" while the funeral cortege of Colonel Drew 
was passing the house, and various other foolish de- 
vices to attract attention ; or, I will do her the justice 
to say she thought it was patriotic, possibly, as her 
sympathy was very strong for the South. She was 
very handsome, and had three or four of the most 
beautiful, but ill-bred, children I ever had the misfor- 
tune to meet. We lodged in the same hotel, and it 
was a treat to see their style at the table, acting as if 
in their own private family, and helping themselves 
to the food as if no one else was at the table, utterly 
ignored by the mother, who would look up and down 
the table, and, if a stranger was present, begin in 
some way the story of her Ship Island experience es- 
pecially for the new comer's benefit. Even those who 
sympathized in the most active manner with the South 
had many a sly laugh when we heard the oft-told Ship 
Island story from the lips of the very pretty woman, 
as she rehearsed the cruelties heaped upon her by But- 
ler's orders. 

I suppose no one was ever more cordially hated than 
Butler was in the whole South, owing to the order he 
issued that "any woman who insulted an officer 
should be treated as a woman of the town. ' ' One can 
see how much opportunity was here given to men who 
were not all born gentlemen, even if wearing officers' 
clothing, when the people, proud and high-spirited, 
had to submit to many things that were hard to en- 
dure. I think that no order issued during the war 
was so bitterly resented as this, or caused more hate. 



INTERESTING INCIDENTS AND EXPEKIENCES. 45 

I received a note one day saying that if I would go 
to a certain drug store in Montgomery I would get 
some news from my husband. He was in New York 
and I had not heard from him for months. I went 
immediately and stated my name, handing the note I 
had received. I was silently ushered into a back 
room, passed through another room, then entered a 
large warehouse where a cleared space about eight feet 
square was surrounded by boxes, bales and jugs. Two 
chairs were set there, and my conductor said: "Sit 
down here, and a gentleman will come to see you. ' ' I 
sat waiting perhaps ten minutes — it seemed to me as 
many hours — when suddenly, from whence I knew 
not, a tall man slipped from behind me and took 
the vacant chair, giving his name as he did so. He 
was just from New York, and had run the ocean block- 
ade into Mobile, and in this way laid the foundation 
for his large fortune which he made after the war. 

I had seen only Confederate clothing worn for two 
years, and despite my anxiet}^ and embarrassment, I 
was fairly wild to laugh, so strange did the wide-toed 
boots, on the enormously big feet, draped in extremely 
wide trousers, look. He was over six feet tall, and 
what with his dress, his mustache and his mysterious 
manner, I thought of Mephistopheles in comedy, and 
I never saw this man afterwards that I did not recall 
this feeling of fear and distrust that crept over me as 
he talked. He gave me the news I expected, declaring 
that he could not bring better, but had parted with 
Mr. S. six weeks before in New York. 



46 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

VIII. 
FAREWELL TO THE OLD HOME. 

NO LETTERS came from friends, and, as each 
dreadful report from the "West came in, I 
longed to go to my dear old father ; it became 
a fever that seemed to burn me up. Sleeping or wak- 
ing, I could not tear my thoughts from him. He 
seemed to need me. My idolized father, oh, where was 
he? I was so helpless, so lonely. I wrote to my only 
half brother, then stationed at Meridian, Miss., and 
told him I was going to try to make my way to our 
father in Arkansas. My brother, I found, was suffer- 
ing from the same anxiety as myself. I naturally 
traced this feeling on his part as well as my own to 
the fact that the death of his eldest son must be a 
source of great distress to our father. 

It was finally decided that I would, with my two 
children, a son and daughter, aged respectively twelve 
and fourteen, secure a pass from the Governor, John 
Gill Shorter, and pass through the lines. My route to 
Arkansas would take me by way of Meridian, where 
my brother was. 

As rapidly as my arrangements could be made, I 
prepared to go. My Confederate money I turned into 
gold, buying wherever I could and giving a boat load 
of paper for a handful of gold. Shut up in my room, 
I sewed twenty and five and ten-dollar gold pieces in 
three belts for myself and my children. I made a 
yoke-shaped belt for myself, and quilted it completely 
full of twenty-dollar gold pieces. I foolishly failed to 
try to wear it before starting away. I thought of the 
youth and frailty of my children, and carefully meas- 
ured the burthen I put upon them, but, woman-like, 
I failed to think of myself, on whom so much de- 



FAREWELL TO THE OLD HOME. 47 

pended. 

A young friend that I had known from her baby- 
hood was about to be married, and she came to me to 
beg that_j as I was going inside the Union lines, I would 
sell her all my best and finest clothing. It was a God- 
send to me, for I felt as though I could never again 
wear the gay garments of a fashionable woman, and I 
was unable to carry the things I possessed on this 
journey, so I let her select all she wished and took 
my pay in the "coin of the country," Confederate 
money, at 5 cents on the dollar. My salmon-colored 
brocade silk, trimmed with lovely lace, worn the last 
time I was ever dressed in full ball costume, was sold 
for a thousand dollars, and a velvet cloak, black silks 
and all sorts of things went for like large sums, which 
T turned into gold as fast as I could, and with the 
rest paid my expenses as far as I could use it. My 
diamonds I sewed inside my clothing; they were few, 
but valuable. 

My friends, learning that I was going away, com- 
menced sending in the lunch for our journey. One of 
the largest kind of baskets and two smaller ones for 
the children to carry were prepared, and I certainly 
have reason to believe my friends prized me highly, 
for notwithstanding it was in the terrible time of deso- 
lation that I have described, my lunch was two whole 
hams, chicken, cake, butter, Maryland biscuits, some 
fine French brandy and preserves enough to last us 
the entire trip if we succeeded in getting through the 
lines. 

My pass from the Governor gave me an escort, but 
none could be found. So, after selling everything but 
my dearest treasures, we turned away from the life- 
long home, never to again rest for long anywhere in 
"this great wide fool's paradise of shams and lies." 

In Montgomery I parted with my darling old foster- 
mother. She it was who first held me in her hands 



48 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

when the world's strong light streamed into my baby 
eyes, who had pillowed my childish head in my early 
orphanage on her tender breast, who had comforted 
me in my first sorrows of motherhood, almost a child 
myself; who had nursed my children and shrouded 
my darlings in death. How I loved her! How we 
wept and clung together, her tear-wet black face 
pressed against my rosy one — the best, the truest, the 
tenderest friend that ever a woman claimed! My 
dying mother had laid me in her arms, and the last 
sound that had filled her ears was not my father's 
words of love, but this black woman's promise of fealty 
and love to her child, as she took me from the fast 
stiffening arms, and by my mother's request sealed her 
promise with a kiss on the cold lips of the young 
mother. 

This woman was loyal to me with a love born of 
God 's own truth ; and, in my deepest sorrow, I found 
in her my tenderest friend. May my God for- 
get me and my children despise me, when I 
forget the love, the devotion and self-abnega- 
tion of my negro servants and friends, both before 
and after the terrible war was over. I am glad to give 
this public tribute to the race that was so loyal to me 
and mine, and thereby earned my deathless gratitude. 

We went from Montgomery to Selma, and then to 
Meridian. So far there had been little trouble and 
our railway travel was unbroken. At Meridian I met 
my brother and was a guest in the house of an old 
schoolmate, and here a pass was obtained from General 
Johnston. 

My traveling basket of lunch was a God-send, for I 
had an opportunity of sharing my good things all 
along the line. I met for the first time with Captain 
Henderson, and we shared our lunch with him and a 
lady friend we met on the train. Some distance from 
J\leridian we found the railroad torn up and from 
there the trip had to be made in wagons. I had two 



FAEEWELL TO THE OLD HOME. 49 

timnks and two children. Captain Henderson arranged 
for me to go with my daughter in the ambulance of 
General Dan Adams, and he took my two trunks and 
my son in General Featherstone 's ambulance by an- 
other route to Canton. We were to meet at that point 
on the morning of the following day. The small 
pocket diary that I took notes in was lost, and my 
memory is not clear on the breaks on this road, but I 
think I can locate the main events correctly. 

We left home about the middle of November, and 
the weather Avas growing cool. Captain Henderson 
introduced me to General Adams. He w^as a small 
man, and though pleasant in manner, seemed rather 
taciturn. I thought our conversation during our trip 
went over a vast deal of ground, frequently shared by 
the young Confederate soldier that drove the magnifi- 
cent team of black mules. As evening came on the 
general was taken with a violent fit of vomiting, and 
his sufferings were terrible. I had, woman-like, car- 
ried a lot of medicine, and securely tucked av/ay in 
the bottom of my basket was a bottle of fine brandy, 
still unopened, that my nephew had given me. There 
was no intention of stopping : we expected to travel all 
night, so as to reach our destination in time. The 
general became so ill that he took my medicine like a 
child. At last I insisted that he should lie down. I 
unrolled my shawls, adjusted a pillow, and taking out 
the seat, I sat on the floor by his side. He became so 
ill that we had to stop at a farmhouse for a ie\v 
hours, when he grew somewhat better. After this 
rest we again started and drove through the woods 
and swamps between 3 and 7 o'clock. We had ]io 
lamps, anci it aroused my admiration to see how the 
young fellow bowled along in the darkness, rarely 
ever striking a stump or root. As we drove into Can- 
ton and down to the depot I was rejoiced to see my 
boy and Captain Henderson waiting for us. My 



50 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

trunks were thrown on the train, I had a few words 
with him, a hurried farewell, and we were soon under 
way. 

At the next break in the railway I met with Captain 
Barclay, who took us as far as some station this side 
of Como, and then I was left with two children, two 
trunks and nothing in sight save a ravine, down which 
we scrambled, leaving our trunks behind. I saw a 
house on the further side, a bridge had been burned, 
and it was down and up the embankment that we had 
to make our way. 

Captain Barclay had pointed out dangers and hor- 
rors of every character and urged my return, but I 
was determined to press on to Memphis. My first 
intention had been to reach Vicksburg and cross there 
into Arkansas, but my brother, for some reason or 
impression he could scarcely define, preferred my go- 
ing to Memphis. It was for this reason I took the 
route I did. 

I approached the half -ruined house and saw a half 
dozen men standing or lying about. A great, red- 
whiskered man was resting on his elbow, lying at full 
length on the platform. For some reason I can't tell 
why, I adressed myself to this man, although I said 
"gentlemen," and swept the crowd in my vision as I 
began speaking, but soon fixed my eyes on the man 
lying on the floor. 

I briefly stated my condition, and asked if there was 
a chance to secure a conveyance to Como. The men 
laughed, but the red-haired fellow stared silently at 
me without a word. Every house had been burned; 
the sun was sinking fast. It was some eight miles to 
Como. I gained this much by questioning, and that 
a handcar was the means of communication. 

"Look here," I said to the big man, "I am alone; 
I have my two trunks over there; I have these two 
children, and I am trying to reach my father in Arkan- 



FAREWELL TO THE OLD HOME. 51 

sas. I want to go to Como. Wliat will you take me 
for? I have Confederate money. I will not need it 
after reaching Senatobia. I will pay you well to carry 
me to Como on a handcar. ' ' 

''What about your trunks?" he asked. 

''"Won't some of you bring them over? I am a wo- 
man, and alone. I throw myself on your care, your 
manliness. Help me as you would want a man to 
help your womankind, mother or wife, in my condi- 
tion, ' ' I said as rapidly as I could. 

The big man then rose from his sprawling attitude, 
pulled up his loosely hung trousers, thrust his hands 
as far as he could into his pockets, and said : 

"That's the talk, boys! Get them trunks over; 
we'll pull out two handcars and set the missus down 
at Como. By golly, no woman can say that sort of 
thing to me and not get help." 

I w^as so worn and nervous I could only bow my 
thanks, while the tears filled my eyes and fell on my 
cheeks. 

In a very few minutes we were on a handcar. A 
square boarding was hooked in some way between the 
two cars, and two men on each end pulling with all 
their might. When we reached Como it was almost 
dusk. I took out my roll of Confederate money and 
said : ' ' What do I owe you 1 ' ' 

"A hundred dollars apiece, I guess," said my red- 
haired knight with the slouched hat and baggy trous- 
ers. I gave him one thousand, saying that I would 
not need it when I crossed the lines. My escort started 
back, waving their hats and cheering a lusty farewell 
to us as we stood in the gathering gloom. I hastily 
ran up the path that led to Dr. Sim Tate 's home, that 
still stood unburned, to se if I could remain the night 
over at his house. I was cordially welcomed, and met 
there two men on their way to Senatobia, walking on 
the road. I prepared and sent a note to my husband's 



52 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

■uncle, requesting him to send a conveyance to meet me 
at Como, I to remain at Tate's until it came. 

That evening when our excellent supper was over 
Mrs. Tate invited me to sit with her until bedtime. I 
saw all the surroundings of wealth and luxury, and 
in a great measure they had escaped the horrors of 
war, and it was indeed a relief to sleep our weariness 
awav in a comfortable bed. 



A NIGHT OF TERROR. 53 

IX. 
A NIGHT OF TERROR. 

AFTER a refreshing night's sleep at Dr. Sim 
Tate 's house in Como, I waited patiently for 
news from Senatobia. About three o'clock 
we saw coming along the road a covered wagon, drawn 
by two mules, which were driven by a big negro man. 
This was to be our conveyance, and proved to be the 
only one left to Mr. Arnold, my husband's uncle. It 
looked as if it were twenty feet long. It was high at 
each end and covered with white canvas, or what had 
once been white. 

"Howdy, Miss Lizzie? You done forgot me, but I 
'member you comin' to our house in South Carline 
when Mas' Jim was a boy. Lord a massy, you was a 
gal den ; now you got two great, big chillun. ' ' 

This was the greeting given b}^ the driver as he 
swung my two heavy trunks, as if they had been paper 
he was tossing up, into the lumbering vehicle we were 
to ride in. 

Two or three splint-bottomed chairs formed our 
seats, and we climbed up over the sides, leaving Mrs. 
Tate waving us a farewell from the steps of her hos- 
pitable home. 

When I reached Senatobia it was nearly sunset, and 
the dear old uncle came to meet us, while his witty 
Irish wife was waiting on a great crowd of people. 

Among the guests in the house I found Mrs. Sam 
Tate and Mrs. Oliver Greenlaw, two of the most 
prominent and wealthy citizens of Memphis, who were 
refugees. The beautiful residence of Mrs. Greenlaw 
had been seized and was used for Federal headquar- 
ters. Mrs. Tate was one of the loveliest and most ac- 
complished women of the South. 



54 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

We remained there two or three days, and, inci- 
dentally, my uncle told me in the event of needing 
help, or getting into trouble, to call on Dr. Foulks. 

I thought with joy: "I shall go right out to Ar- 
kansas." I had seen so little of hostilities that all 
seemed new and strange to me. 

When we left Senatobia our next point was to 
reach Hernando. Beyond that very little seemed to be 
known to our relatives and friends. 

We made the trip in a stage in company with a 
number of men, and this was the last part of our trip 
in which we could use Confederate money, and for the 
future only gold or greenbacks could be used. I saw 
here for the first time a greenback bill, but my uncle 
did not tell me that we could use our money no fur- 
ther than this point. Our driver halted at a small 
cottage in the woods, and here we were left, the men 
all going on foot in different ways. I was told by the 
man he could not go on to town and it was a little 
way further on. The only occupant of the house was 
a mean-looking, ferret-faced man, who helped carry 
our trunks inside. The driver hurried back. 

I called the man who kept the house and inquired 
concerning our trip to Memphis. For the first time I 
found that I could pass Confederate money no longer, 
not even here. I had a large sum in gold, as before 
stated. 

He told me my trip into Memphis, a distance of 
twenty-three miles, was to be paid in gold, twenty-five 
dollars; my night's lodging five dollars in gold. I 
did not know it was at a premium of 50 cents on the 
dollar. 

We were to start in the morning early, and while I 
had been out inquiring for and securing a team and 
driver, the landlord had been questioning my son in a 
way that aroused my fears. 

We ate our supper, which was prepared by a small 



A NIC4HT OF TERROR. 55 

black woman, who disappeared as soon as she cooked 
it. I tried to find her, and Avas told she had left. 

A man kept a few cigars, candy, lemons and such 
things in the small shed room off the portico. I bought 
from him two or three candles, as I had only a small 
piece hardly longer than my finger. 

I was compelled to change a ten dollar gold piece 
with this man, and I saw the covetous greed in his eyes 
as he took the coin. 

''Where did you come from?" he asked, as he 
handed me the money. 

' ' I answered : ' ' From Senatobia. ' ' 

''Why, Jim said you came from Alabama," was 
his hasty response. 

I knew at once that the landlord had obtained this 
information from my son, whom I had failed to cau- 
tion. I went to my room and found that the sliding 
bolt had been removed from the inside of the door, 
for I had certainly slipped it on entering the room 
first; the lock was broken and was no security what- 
ever. 

In those terrible times life was so cheap, and the 
loneliness of our situation so great, the fact of the sums 
of gold I had about me, and the looks of the man I had 
met in the shop outside, all conspired to arouse my 
fears. 

My children, utterly tired out, were sleeping the 
sleep of childhood, sound and sweet. My boy was a 
brave, manly fellow, although hardly twelve years old. 
It was cold, and I would not let them undress. We 
had no fire, so they laid down in their clothing. I 
piled our rugs around them and sat down to write my 
last letter to our friends. 

I wrote rapidly and was absorbed entirely in my 
letter, when I thought I heard a soft step outside. I 
had a pistol in my pocket, and no man could send a 
bullet straighter to its mark than I. I stepped to the 



56 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

door and flung it wide open. A candle had been burn- 
ing in a bottle outside, but the candle was gone, and 
in the darkness the landlord was standing, in his 
stocking feet, but a few steps from the door. 

"I thought I heard you," I said; "I am glad you 
are here. I want to ask you some questions. Come 
in." 

I did not turn my back to return to my chair. I 
stepped back and motioned for him to pass me. He 
did so, glancing toward the bed where the children 
lay, and took one of the two chairs in the room. I 
drew the other toward me with my left hand, and as 
I sat down I drew my right hand from my pocket with 
the pistol in it. 

"This is a very lonely place," I said, ''and in 
troublous times like these it seems a poor place to sleep 
in with neither lock nor bolt on the door. How am I 
to fasten it?" 

' ' Nobody is going to hurt you, ' ' he said sneeringly. 
"I only came to ask you what time you wanted to be 
called in the morning. What are you doing with that 
pistol?" 

"I am only holding it in my hand now," I said 
quietly, ''and I expect to be up all night. I have much 
writing to do. I have carried this pistol in my pocket 
ever since I left home ; it is heavy and I am tired. I 
have not had any use for it, and it is not likely that I 
shall, but if there should be any need to use it, I shall 
most certainly do it. I bought the candles because I 
expected to write all night. I wanted the negro wo- 
man to stay in my room with me tonight. Why did 
she go away?" 

' ' She goes home every night ; she never sleeps here, ' ' 
was his reply. 

"Very well," I answered; "I am not a good sleeper 
at any time." 

"I'll bet you couldn't hit the side of a house if you 



A NIGHT OF TERROR. 57 

did shoot," he said, in a sort of laughing tone, as he 
rose from his chair and lounged toward the door. As 
he pulled to the door the look on his face was so strange 
and changed, in the flare of the candle, that it seemed 
another face, so terrible and frowning was it. 

I took my scissors that lay on the table and tln*ust 
them into the broken lock as a weak barrier against 
intrusion. 

I took my seat at the table and wrote rapidly for a 
few seconds, when I distinctly heard a stick break 
as if under a heavy tread, right by the window. It 
was closed and a thin white curtain was over it. 

"Walter," I called, as I drew the cover from the 
tired child, "get up quick." He was awake in a mo- 
ment. I told him how uneasy I felt and what had 
occurred. 

The little chap got out of bed and opened his trunk. 
He had put a bundle of nails and a hammer in his 
trunk and he soon had half a dozen nails driven in the 
door and two in the window. Then, taking out a book, 
he took a seat by the table, as if to read all night. I 
wrote and he read for an hour. I lit another candle, 
and by this time he seemed so tired I urged him to 
lie down, which at last he did. My daughter slept 
soundly all the while. 

I felt so certain that some one was watching me that 
at last I blew out my candle, slipped oif my shoes and 
crept to the window on my knees. I quietly listened 
and peeped through the side of the curtain. It was 
dark outside, not a thing to be seen, but I distinctly 
heard two men talking in a very low tone and seem- 
ingly near the window. They were seated on the end 
of the portico in front of the house, on the same side 
as the window. I at last made this out, but 
my heart beat so loudly it seemed to be in my ears 
instead of my breast. Just then I heard the knob of 



58 WAK TIME REMINISCENCES. 

my door turned. 

I rose from my knees by the window and crept to 
the side of my son's bed. His soft breathing was all 
I heard save the barking of a dog in the passageway. 

No landlord came and no breakfast was served. The 
man who kept the little stall of goods said he was to 
collect the fare for our night 's lodging ; that the land- 
lord had to go to some sale in the country and would 
get no breakfast, but he would give us a cup of hot 
coffee for a dollar. I asked if he slept there ; he said 
no, he went up to his house, and pointed to it in the 
distance. We took three cups of coffee and gave him 
his dollar in greenbacks. 

Our driver came, and with the children seated on 
our trunks and I on the seat with the driver, we rode 
through a blinding drizzle of rain to Memphis. We 
met one or two Confederate soldiers who seemed to 
be dashing away from pursuit. They rode into the 
woods at the side of the road. 

Some distance ahead a half dozen Federal soldiers 
stopped us and questioned our taciturn driver. 

*'Did you see any Confeds cross the road below 
here?" 

"No," was the prompt response. "Haven't met 
a darned thing but a cow since I left Hernando. ' ' 

Walter gave an exclamation of surprise, but I 
promptly pumped my elbow into his breast, as he sat 
right behind me. This gave him something else to 
concern himself about and the driver lashed his horses 
and drove on. 

"You little fool," said the driver, looking back at 
the boy, "you like to have played hob, didn't you?" 

This was about all he said during the whole trip. 

My hand is so painful that I can write no more at 
this time. Still more painful is the memory of those 
days in Memphis, brought to my mind by my diary, 
as it lies here before me, stained with tears and yellow 
with age. 



THE LEADINGS OF PROVIDENCE. 59 

X. 

THE LEADINGS OF PROVIDENCE. 

ON ENTERING Memphis we went at once to 
the old Gayoso Hotel, then in good condition, 
and the best hotel. It was indeed a noble 
building, and its front of heavy stone, facing the bluff, 
made a fine appearance. It was afterwards seized by 
the Federals and used for some purpose, and finally 
became a sort of rookery for negroes and outcasts. In 
the last few years it has been rebuilt and added to, un- 
til it is now again a very fine and popular house. 

Mr. Galloway, then a clerk in the house, gave me a 
note of introduction to Mr. Knowlton, to enable me 
to get some clothing I needed, for the cold was intense. 
It seemed strange to a free-born woman to come sud- 
denly under the rules of a military government, and 
to get permission to buy a few clothes. 

I went to the provost marshal, a man named Wil- 
liams, to get a permit to go to Arkansas. He refused 
my request, saying that no permits were being granted. 
On the first day of my stay in Memphis I met an old 
acquaintance, Americus Hatchett, who urged me, in 
the most imploring manner, not to think of going into 
the torn and distracted State. Truly, the reports \^ ere 
of an awful character, wild as a Dantean picture of 
hell. The State was torn and distracted by the raiding 
and robbing from both armies, and all who could were 
leaving it. 

I had a daughter only fourteen years of age. I was 
unprotected save by a son, twelve years old. As we 
had nothing to keep us in Memphis longer, I decided 
to go at once to New York and join my husband, from 
whom I had not heard in many months. I tried to 
telegraph to him, but the lines were cut, and it was 



60 WAK TIME REMINISCENCES. 

impossible to telegraph before reaching Cairo. 

I had never in my life seen my father wear a beard, 
yet for weeks I had seen, when sleeping, an old gray 
head, with long white beard and eyes like stars paling 
before the daylight gleam, so blue, so sad ! With this 
vision always came the feeling as if some one told me 
to go to him; he needed me. That last night in my 
room at the Gayoso Hotel I saw this venerable head 
more plainly than ever, and never did human eyes 
seem so sad before. ' ' Help him, dear God, ' ' I cried ; 
"help him! I desert him not willingly, thou who 
seest my heart doth truly know!" I answered the 
pleading look as I would have answered spoken words. 

I went on board the boat bound for Cairo at five 
o'clock. It was announced to leave at eight. I had 
not then a friend in Memphis that I was aware of; 
yet something urged me not to go. On board the 
Commercial the longing became a sort of maniacal 
craving. I went out and walked the guards in the bit- 
ter cold. I went back and tried to read, but to no 
purpose. The feeling was too strong to be put down. 
Once I even started my son to ask the captain to re- 
fund my money, that I might return to the city. Sum- 
moning all my reasoning faculties. I beat (what I 
called) the foolish fancy down. 

There were dozens of women on board, and usually 
I soon made acquaintances. Now I saw no one. My 
soul was travailing in sorrow and anguish, such as 
before nor since my life holds nothing to equal. 

Summoned to the table, I sat beside the captain. 
Vainly he urged me to eat, and tried to enter into 
conversation with me. An iron hand seemed to be 
clutching my throat, and the effort to swallow was 
torture. With an excuse I left the table, and going 
back to the cabin, took a little child my son was hold- 
ing for a lady who had gone to the table, I sent him 
to my own seat at the table and held the child until 



THE LEADINGS OF PROVIDENCE. 61 

she came. When she returned she took the infant 
and thanked me for holding it. 

I now spoke for the first time to any one beside the 
captain. "Pray, madam," I asked, "from what part 
of onr poor, distracted country are 3^ou going?" 

"Batesville, Arkansas," she replied. 

"Oh," I cried, in joyful surprise, "it is my father's 
home ! Can you tell me anything of him ? His name 
is Andrew Lyle. ' ' 

She was standing before me looking down at me. 
She grasped my arm and cried : ' ' Oh, leave the boat, 
madam, quick, quick! She is firing up; we will be 
carried off. He is here, in the Irving block, a pris- 
oner. We heard today that he was dying." 

My uncle had filled my soul with horror of that 
cold prison. 

I said something— asked some questions to assure 
myself if it were truly he. 

The next words dispelled all doubt. 

"I knew him well. He had two sons, Alex and 
Andrew. Alex was killed at Chickamauga. Oh, for 
God 's sake, go, woman, go quick ! ' ' 

There are men (for the boat was crowded full) who 
will remember the frenzied woman who rushed through 
the crowd calling for the captain and imploring to be 
put on shore. 

Dear, good, noble man! Amid all the excitement 
and worry he soothed and comforted me. I forgot 
my children and the hundred dollars in gold I had 
put into his hands. I was leaving my trunks, my little 
daughter, who was lying down, everything, in my 
haste to be gone. I was shivering until my teeth 
chattered, as with a hard ague. 

The captain took me into a stateroom and said stern- 
ly: "Madam, control yourself. These are not checks 
for the trunks; they are the five twenty-dollar gold 
pieces that you handed me/' 



62 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

' * She said he was dying, ' ' I whispered, as I let the 
coins fall rolling on the floor ; then, for the first time 
in all my strong young life, I mercifully lost all con- 
ciousness. 

The captain caught and held me up, and I was 
roused by his pouring a glass of wine all over me in 
trying to force it into my mouth. In a moment I was 
my brave, strong self. I waited for my daughter. 
The captain took my name and address, and promised 
that he would telegraph from Cairo to my husband, 
which promise was faithfully kept. He went on shore 
with me and secured a hack, saw me seated in it, and 
urged me to brace up and face the matter heroically. 

If that man had a wife I know he was good and 
kind to her; and as long as I live I shall remember 
gratefully the unknown Union captain. 

I felt I could not go to the hotel; I must be with 
women. Where could I go, alone, friendless, half sick 
from nervous exhaustion? I thought of a family to 
whom a Confederate major had given me a letter of 
introduction, and I drove there. How kind they were, 
those soft-eyed French girls! One of them sat up 
all night with me, as I crouched weeping and shiver- 
ing over a coal fire. 

My children could not comprehend the situation. 
They were small when they last saw their grand- 
father, and they did not then know, for they were too 
young to understand, the boundless devotion I held 
for him. 

In the morning I set out to find Mr. Hatchett, for I 
was told it would be impossible to get a permit to 
enter the prison unless some person of influence knew 
me. I found him, secured a boarding place for myself 
and children in the large and aristocratic boarding 
house of Mrs. H., then went to get the permit. 

I will not give names nor write of the humiliation 
and bitterness of that time. I have buried the hatchet 



THE LEADINGS OF PROVmENCE. 63 

and am not one to dig it up ; but there are two sides 
to the war stories, and I had seen both of them, God 
knows! It took two days to get permission to see 
my father. At last I stood inside the whitewashed 
palisade. The front of the building was a mass of 
iron bars, large as an infant's wrist. Within was 
a motley crowd of prisoners. When all memories, 
the fair and sweet, shall have vanished from life, ter- 
rible among the terrible will rise that awful prison 
scene. 

The sergeant held my permit in his hand and 
shouted my father's name aloud. The motley crowd 
swerved forward. I was looking among them for the 
dear head, crowned with its clustering curls, as I had 
seen it last. A voice, his voice, spoke right before me : 
''Give me the letter. That is my name.'' 

There was the silver hair, the long snowy beard, 
the dim, pleading eyes of my vision for six weeks 
past. Oh, Christ ! the memory is maddening now, 
and time can never, never soothe the wound ; it bleeds 
at a finger touch. I cannot write the details; dozens 
know them; I alone felt them. 

A man, I afterwards learned his name. Dr. Bates 
(himself a prisoner) requested permission to speak 
to me. ' ' If you would save him, work fast ; three days 
ends his life in here," he whispered. I felt it as we 
clasped each other close, hugging the cold bars be- 
tween our breasts, coarser and harsher than the earth- 
en barrier so soon to lie between us. 

The lieutenant, a man named Zeigler, was as kind 
as he could be, and did all he could to aid me. He was 
a Union soldier from West Virginia, and knew my 
father's people there. 

I think they said there were nearly three hundred 
men crowded in the prison. 



64 WAE TIME REMINISCENCES. 

XI. 
THE VISION FULFILLED. 

I SHOULD hate to record on any page, for any eye 
to read, all the horror, the humiliation and heart- 
ache of those three terrible days before I pro- 
cured my father's release. He was to report every 
morning. Three good men went on his bond; Dr. 
Fowlkes was one of them. Dr. Grant and Americus 
Hatchett the other two. 

I tried to get a room for him where I was stopping 
with my children ; but the house was crowded, and he 
was a prisoner on parole, accused of being a Confed- 
erate spy. I learned afterwards that Dr. Grant had 
assured the provost marshal that he was a doomed 
man, already near death. I secured a room in a 
house the landlady of which was formerly an Arkan- 
sas woman; but the fireplace smoked badly. I was 
promised another room as soon as two Federal officers 
vacated, which they expected to do on the following 
day. I stayed with him, leaving the children to sleep 
at our rooms and come to me during the day. 

I explained to my father all the chances and charges 
that had brought me to him. To me he expressed no 
opinion, but to a gentleman who came in to see him, 
a released prisoner himself, he said : "I once doubted 
special providences, trusted little in them. I doubt 
no more. This is my daughter, from Alabama. Had 
an angel descended visibly in my presence and opened 
my prison door I could not have been more surprised 
than when I saw my child. My constant thought had 
been how it would wring her heart to hear how I had 
died." 

He had been arrested while crossing the river, hav- 



THE VISION FULFILLED. 65 

ing been reported by a Confederate knave to an 
equally knavish Federal detective. When arrested all 
his effects were taken from him. Eighteen or twenty 
thousand dollars in Confederate money was reported, 
two horses, and his blankets. Sixteen hundred dollars 
in currency and gold was never reported. It affords 
me satisfaction now to say that when the man who 
reported him as a spy and got his share of the money 
was robbed of his ill-gotten gains and murdered while 
crossing Hickey Haley swamp in less than a month 
afterward. 

The second day I was able to remove him to the 
larger room the officers had vacated. He seemed 
much stronger and better; threw his blanket about 
him and walked with the old stately stride to the 
room. A bed was ready for him, and a large couch 
standing in front of the fireplace was arranged for 
me. 

I soon saw that my father's strength was fictitious. 
Erysipelas had set in and the acute bronchitis was 
growing rapidly worse. All night long he wrestled 
with the terrible agony, slowly choking to death. 

I sent for the doctor — I knew no one else to send 
for— and he remained with me until he was called 
away in great haste, promising to return. He has 
since proved the grand secrets of the other life. God's 
kindest glance be on him ! The landlady did her own 
cooking, and long before day was preparing meals for 
two or three dozen guests. She had come in answer 
to my call of agony, but felt compelled to return to 
her arduous duties. The war and frequent deaths 
rendered people callous. 

I was alone, witnessing agony I was powerless to 
relieve. The struggle for breath was the most awful 
thing I ever witnessed. A man of powerful physique, 
he fought death as he would have wrestled with a 



66 WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 

lion, springing to the floor and walking with long 
strides np and down the room, throwing himself first 
on the couch, then on the bed, and then sinking into 
a moment's silence, only to renew the struggle again. 
I was frantic with grief. At last, with a great cry, he 
threw himself down on his bed, and slowly the purple 
shadow crept over his face — a long, sobbing sigh, and 
all was over. I threw myself across his breast and 
only feit a passionate desire to die, too. 

I lay half unconscious, making no note of time. I 
heard some one enter the room and remove some arti- 
cles of furniture and go out again. At last I rose to 
my feet and uncovered my eyes, so hot and dry. The 
first thing that met my gaze was a white cloth thrown 
over the high mirror that hung over the bureau in 
the corner of the room. Like a revelation I saw the 
literal fulfillment of my old prophetic vision. The 
bed clothing had been taken away from the couch; 
there it stood, square, upright at both ends, covered 
ail over with the smooth, black leather cushioning. 
The uncanopied bedposts were within an inch of the 
ceiling. The fireplace Avas beyond the lounge. A 
door was at my right hand in the wall ; at the foot of 
the bed was another. Close in the corner stood the 
bed, and on it lay the idol of my life— all as I saw it 
in my dream in March, 1861. The fulfillment was in 
December, 1863. 

When I first met my father I asked him if he had 
thought much of me while in prison. ' ' Yes, ' ' was his 
reply, "but Alex always seemed to be in my mind. 
Whether asleep or awake, he was near me, it seemed. ' ' 

God works by physical laws for all things visible. 
He sends His kindly ministers, the sun, the wind, the 
showers, the healing dew in the long drouth, the cool- 
ing breeze on the hot day. Is He less able to work 
by hidden laws? Who shall say I have not a right to 



THE VISION FULFILLED. 67 

claim I was miraculously led to my father's aid? 
Otherwise he would have died neglected, his soul dark- 
ened in death with doubts of divine providence. 

Only a month before my brother was killed his 
desire to see our dear old father was expressed to me 
in the strongest terms. Why should I not believe that 
the spirit freed from the limitations of flesh sought 
cur iather, found his condition, and impressed my 
mind Vvdth it, causing me to seek him? My singu- 
larly prophetic vision was long before my mental dis- 
tress began, which was not until after my father's 
imprisonment and some weeks after my brother's 
death. Had I heeded the monitions of the unseen that 
fiUed my heart with dread I would have sped to aid 
him in his imprisonment, and, perhaps, have saved 
his life. God knows, He only! I question not His 
mercy. I bless Him daily that He brought me to my 
father's aid and gave to me the privilege of being his 
last earthly comfort as his soul floated out into the 
unlmown dark. 

I cannot better close this chapter than by giving a 
little poem, written years ago, expressing the tender 
affection that existed between my father and myself: 



68 MY FATHER'S LOVE. 



MY FATHER'S LOVE. 

My childhood days were motherless, 

Lone and strange beyond compare; 
But for my father's tender love, 

Too hard for any child to bear. 
Whene'er I took my good-night kiss 

I always made this childish plea: 
"Dear father, while you lie awake, 

I beg you'll turn your face to me." 
He never laughed, but, grave and calm. 

Looked down with eyes of tenderest blue. 
And answered thus: "My little lamb. 

My face is always turned to you." 

This was my type of heavenly love. 

I drew the childish inference then: 
"If thus my earthly father feels, 

How must God love the sons of men!" 
No after faith, no learned lore. 

Could shake my trust so firm and free. 
Though oft my heart was sick and sore, 

I felt God's love was turned to me. 
Though long years their race have run, 

My firm, unwavering trust in thee 
Still bids me pray as I have done, 

"Oh! Father, turn Thy face to me." 



WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 69 



XII. 

MR. HENDERSON OWEN came to me, after 
hearing of my trouble, and in my sore* dis- 
tress he proved indeed a friend. Deter- 
mined that my father should not be buried in the 
prison burying ground, Mr. Owen and others secured 
a place in Elmwood and I paid $15 for the opening. 
I had not seen the grave, having left all to Mr. Owen's 
discretion, as I was ill with fatigue and anxiety. 

With my friends and children occupying two car- 
riages, we started to the graveyard. On Second street, 
between Poplar and Jefferson, to our horror, we were 
stopped by a squad of Federal soldiers, and without 
a word they loosed the horses from the three con- 
veyances as fast as they could do so. To Mr. Owen's 
earnest pleadings, all we could get in the way of in- 
formation was: "An order has been issued by the 
commanding officer that every horse is to be seized, no 
matter where or how engaged; a raid from Forrest 
is expected." 

Of course, the order had nothing to do with me or 
mine, especially as the soldiers said they had no dis- 
cretion to exercise. The order was to "seize every 
horse. ' ' The Federals were always in expectation of a 
raid from the ubiquitous Forrest, and he held them in 
terror as long as he kept the saddle. 

Mr. Owen went immediately to headquarters and 
secured a permit to have the body convej^ed to Elm- 
wood, on condition that he returned as soon as possi- 
ble and saw the horses restored to the authorities. He 
went out and deposited the body in the receiving vault 
and rode back with the driver, we, in the meantime, 
returning to our homes on foot. 



70 WAE TIME REMINISCENCES. 

This was in December of 1863. Five days after I 
went out and had the body buried. We left Memphis 
and I did not again return for many years; then so 
many changes had been made in Elmwood that I 
never could find the grave. Roads had been changed, 
the vault removed, and every trace of the grave had 
vanished ; and, strange to say, no record of the burial 
could be found on the books. I nor any one living 
knows where his body lies. 

My brother, who served faithfully through the four 
fateful years, died, and my father's name died with 
him in the masculine line of our branch. 

In the two years that followed my father's death 
I shared with the residents of Memphis the humilia- 
tion forced upon a conquered and helpless people. 
While in attendance on my father, owing to the fact 
that I had just crossed the lines, I was an object of 
suspicion and hate to a lieutenant on General Veatch's 
staff, who had been instrumental in my father's ar- 
rest ; nor could I convince this man that I was not in 
some way acting in collusion with him in some scheme 
detrimental to the Union cause. 

My young son fell in with, or was sought out by, 
a youth somewhat older than he. They became quite 
friendly, and he was often in our room. Utterly un- 
suspicious, the children talked freely to this boy. In- 
nocent of any evil intentions, I was absorbed in my 
own grief. My husband, a Union man, had long since 
returned to New York, and owing to the heavy drain 
on my limited resources during my father's illness, I 
was in truly a wretched condition of doubt and uncer- 
tainty. 

One day I was summoned before the Federal au- 
thorities. On entering the room of the lieutenant I 
found him seated by a table, on which lay two pistols 
and an outspread Union flag from which a number of 
stars had been cut. My heart sank, for I knew it, 



WAR TIME REMINISCENCES. 71 

and supposed it was in my trunk in my room. The 
following- conversation took place: 

' ' Madam, ' ' said the man, sternly, ' ' do you reco2:nize 
this flag?" 

"Yes, sir," was my reply. 

' ' Why has it been thus desecrated, by mutilation of 
the field?" 

"I used it to dress dolls with, and I cut out eleven 
of the stars to put on the crowns worn by young girls, 
representing eleven States of the Confederacy." 

He stamped his foot in angry vehemence. "For 
what purpose was this done? Do not use that word 
' Confederacy ' again ! ' ' 

' ' To raise money in aid of the Rebel cause, sir. ' ' 

"From Avhat source did you obtain so handsome a 
flag?" 

' ' It was given by the ladies of our town to a militia 
company of 'Light Guards,' and I was chosen to pre- 
sent it to them when a girl. When the war began the 
ladies presented them a Rebel banner. I put it on the 
old staff, using the cord and tassel, and when my 
work was done the young men gave me the Union 
flag. Most of them have been killed, and I cherish 
the old banner for that reason." 

* ' Are these pistols yours ? Where did you get them, 
and what are you doing with them ? ' ' 

I could not help smiling, and it made him furious 
when I asked : ' ' How in this world did you get them, 
anyway ? ' ' 

"No remarks, madam; answer my question and 
stop using that word ' Rebels ' with such emphasis. ' ' 

"I brought them with me from Alabama. One we 
had at home and I put it in my trunk ; the small one 
was given me by my nephew when he left home, and I 
have carried it in my pocket until since my father's 
burial. How did they come into your possession, lieu- 
tenant? I hate to think there are spies and thieves 





72 ADDENDA. ^ ^,^ ^^_ ^ 

013 704 520 5 

in the house when I thought they were all my 
friends. ' ' 

''That is not the question. What did you propose 
to do with them r' 

"I own them, sir; I had no definite purpose con- 
cerning them. Will you let me have them?" 

"No, madam, they are confiscated. You can go, 
and be careful how you express yourself hereafter 
about the Union cause and the Federal authorities." 

I bbwed myself out, and on the stairs I met the 
young dog who had been the spy and thief infesting 
my room under the guise of friendship for the lonely 
boy who trusted him. 

I have had experience in Memphis, Mobile and New 
Orleans during the years of reconstruction and know 
all of its horrors and bitterness. At one time our 
Governor, half our Legislature and our school super- 
intendant in New Orleans were all negroes. The re- 
volt of the 14th of September, in which the citizens 
threw off the terrible yoke, ended much of our trou- 
ble, and a new era of prosperity began, and the whole 
South roused like a giant from its humiliation and 
almost despair. 



These letters comprising this little book were written on a 
government claim while living in the Territory of Washington, 
my only companion my young son of fourteen, and my nearest 
neighbor a mile away. I gave them to a friend who published 
them in a small magazine in New Orleans nearly fifteen years 
ago. Friends here have accepted and published them in the 
interest of Shiloh Memorial and others of like character. 

This little addenda forestalls the need of Preface. 



HoUinger 

pH8.5 

Mill Run F3-1955 



x 



